Saturday, April 03, 2010

REMEMBER ME (2010, Allen Coulter, A+++++)

REMEMBER ME (2010, Allen Coulter, A+++++),

GREEN SNAKE (2010, Lee Swee Keong, A+++++),

CIRCLES (2010, Cyriak, A+++++),

THE SIMPLE DECEPTION (2010, Punnatat Bodhivechakul, A+),

CHARADE (1963, Stanley Donen, A+),

BANANES À RÉGIME FORCÉ (2008, Didier Fassio, A+),

THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRE (1970, Jean Rollin, A+),

MY ONE AND ONLY (2009, Richard Loncraine, A+),

BANG RAJAN 2 (2010, Thanit Jitnukul, A+/A)

SARANAIR SIBLOR (2010, Naruebordee Wechakum, A-),

CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010, Louis Leterrier, A-/B+),

IT'S COMPLICATED (2009, Nancy Meyers, B+),

WITH LOVE (2010, Saijai Pimtong, C+)

Thanks to Catherine Grant for telling us about Cyriak.

2 comments:

celinejulie said...

I think there are many reasons why I love REMEMBER ME. One reason is because I had expected it to be just a stupid romantic film in which I normally can't feel involved. But it turns out that I can feel very much involved with the romantic world in this film, because this is not a romantic world in which everybody is good, redeemable, or forgivable, but it is a romantic world which is full of hatred and unforgivable characters. I love it very much that the world in this film is full of people who want to hurt you intentionally or unintentionally, including:

1.People in your own family, such as the father

2.You yourself. The hero seems to ask too much from his father. He wants his father to be present at his sister's exhibition. But if the hero just didn't care about his own father and didn't expect his father to be there, the hero would have been much happier. I think the problem does not only occur from the father's misbehavior. It also occurs from "expecting love from the father". If the hero just doesn't want to be loved by the father, he would find real happiness. เราคิดว่าปัญหาของพระเอกกับน้องสาวสามารถแก้ได้ง่ายๆด้วยการไม่เรียกร้องความรักและความห่วงใยจากพ่อ เพราะตราบใดที่ความสุขของเรายังขึ้นอยู่กับการได้รับความรักและความห่วงใยจากพ่อ เราก็จะเป็นทุกข์ แต่ถ้าหากความสุขของเราไม่ขึ้นอยู่กับการได้รับความรักและความห่วงใยจากพ่อ เราก็จะเป็นสุข

3.Strangers who want to kill you because they want your money

4.Your own friends who keep giving you bad advice

5.Your classmates who want to assault you just because you are different

6.Terrorists who want to kill you though you are innocent

I like films which portray HATRED the way I want. REMEMBER ME portrays hatred the way I want, especially hatred in the girls' school. If I were the hero, I might have killed the girl who had assaulted my little sister. The ANGER and HATRED in that scene (in the girls' school) still burn inside me today.

REMEMBER ME corresponds to the way I view the world. This is the world where you are tortured by your own family, where you shouldn't trust your friend, where you classmates are evil, where you can be murdered everyday by strangers or terrorists, and where you can find true happiness if you just don't expect to be loved by your own family.

celinejulie said...

As for WITH LOVE, there are several unintentionally funny scenes in this film, such as the scene in which the mother of Pop talks to her son. Her acting is extremely wooden and her dialogue is so unconvincing that I couldn't help laughing. I also find it very funny that when the character Saifah (Treechada Malyaporn) moves to a new university to avoid the conflict with her sister, one of her friends also moves to a new university with her. I wonder how many friends in the world do something like that—moving to a new university just to accompany a friend.

However, there is one scene in WITH LOVE to which I gave A+. It is the scene in which Pop (Kanawat Jantaralawon) steps on the hand of Saifah. Saifah and her friends think Pop is so handsome that Saifah says, "I would like him to step on my hand again and again." That scene represents female sexual desire and is a little bit masochistic. I like it very much because I think I would say something like that, too. However, the film seems to avoid showing sexual desire after that. That's why this film is much inferior to BORING LOVE (เซ็งเป็ด) (2009, Sarawut Intaraprom, A-), which treats the sexual attraction between the main characters and the sex appeal of the main actors in a much more satisfying way.

I think WITH LOVE, BORING LOVE, MY SPACE (กั๊กกะกาวน์) (2004, Witit Kumsakaew + Rittichai Siriprasitpong, B) and DAD, HE'S JUST A FRIEND (แค่เพื่อนค่ะพ่อ) (2006, Weerapong Kanchananij, B+) are all low-cost, low-ambition Thai films. But I'm quite satisfied with BORING LOVE (a real guilty-pleasure), MY SPACE (I like its ending), and DAD, HE'S JUST A FRIEND (not too good, not too bad), and very disappointed with WITH LOVE. WITH LOVE starts off very promisingly, as promisingly as DIFFERENT FOR GIRLS (1996, Richard Spence, A+/A). The first part of WITH LOVE made me hope that this film would treat the subject of transsexuals and lesbianism seriously. Unfortunately, the film seems to focus on the wrong places.